Xiaomi Redmi Y2 Review

Xiaomi has announced the company’s latest offering in the selfie department, the Redmi Y2. It is also the successor of the Redmi Y1 launched last year. The Redmi Y2 comes with 5.99-inch HD+ display and is powered by Snapdragon 625 Octa Core processor with 3 or 4GB of RAM. It also has the similar dual camera set up like the Redmi Note 5 Pro and packs a massive 16MP camera for selfies. The device also has 3080mAh battery. So how does the phone perform in the segment? Let’s find out in the detailed Xiaomi Redmi Y2 Review.

Design and Build:

In terms of design language, the Redmi Y2 follows the same design of Redmi Note 5 Pro. The back panel has tapered finish towards the edges and feels good in hands. The rear panel has the dual camera unit which is placed vertically similar to the iPhone X and it also has the LED flash. There is a slight projection for the camera unit. The fingerprint scanner is also located at the rear panel. The device also comes with tapered edges and this gives a good feel when holding the device.

The bottom panel houses the 3.5mm audio jack, speaker unit, and micro USB charging slot. The top panel has IR blaster. The right side houses the power and volume keys while the left side has SIM tray. The build quality is pretty good and gives it a metallic finish even though it is made of plastic material.

Display:

The Xiaomi Redmi Y2 comes with the latest 18:9 aspect ratio display and has a 5.99-inch HD+ resolution display. The display colors are decent but the sharpness levels are not great especially when you have HD+ panel with a larger screen size. The viewing are good. The touch response is smooth and the outdoor visibility is also quite decent. The display is not the strength of the phone and feels a bit underwhelming.

Software:

Redmi Y2 comes with MIUI 9.5 on top of Android 8.1 Oreo. If you have used a Xiaomi device previously you might be knowing that MIUI is a heavily skinned UI provide tons of customization and it does not have any resemblance to stock UI. It comes with multiple home screens and a custom notification center along with settings panel.

The phone comes with a plethora of options to customize, be it in the form of themes, icon packs, lock screen, boot animations, sounds and more. All of these can be downloaded from the Themes app. The phone also features the security app which comes with cleaner, virus scan, block list, data usage and more.

There are some useful features dual apps and Second space. The Second space allows you to create a different space on your phone which does not share anything with the first space. You can use the second space as a completely different phone with apps, security and all features included. This means if you want two profiles on your phone like home and work, second space helps in that. Dual apps, as the name indicates, allows users to concurrently run two instances of the app. You can run two WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger etc on the device. MIUI provides an option to lock apps using the fingerprint scanner and this provides additional security to your personal apps.

Xiaomi has also added lots of useful apps like FM radio, recorder, Compass, torch and much more. The phone also comes with IR blaster which means you can use the phone as a remote for your TV, A/C, set-top box and other devices. There is a Mi Remote app which you can configure with Indian brands and this comes in handy.

Performance:

Redmi Y2 is powered by the tried and tested Snapdragon 625. This SoC has been one of the hot favorites for the company and they have already launched Redmi Note 4, Mi A1, Redmi Note 5 with the same SoC. Even though it is the slightly older chipset, it has very good overall performance and in the day to day experience it was smooth and completely lag free experience. The gaming performance of the device was also decent since it has HD+ display, graphics quality was not the best. But there were no heating issues on the device.

The memory management of the device was also good. The phone comes with dual SIM cards and 4G LTE with VoLTE support. Unlike the Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro, the phone has dual SIM card and dedicated SD card slot. The phone is offered with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The call quality is very good on the device and the speaker performance is also quite good for the segment.

Camera:

The Redmi Y2 packs a 12MP primary sensor at f/2.2 and a secondary 5MP shooter for depth sensing and LED flash. This is quite similar to the setup we have seen on Redmi Note 5 Pro. The device also comes with a 16MP selfie camera with soft flash and f/2.2. The camera interface is similar to what we have seen on Redmi Note 5 Pro and it has Portrait mode. Talking about the camera samples, the daylight captures had plenty of details and good color reproduction and the overall clarity is very good for a phone in this segment. The close-up images also had good details. The low light imaging abilities of the phone also were quite ok for the segment. The most important aspect of the phone is the selfie camera which excels and produces some really good selfies. It is definitely one of the good selfie cameras in the segment. The phone can also record videos in 1080p with EIS and the stabilization worked pretty well. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.

Battery Life:

The phone packs a 3080mAh battery and this is smaller capacity compared to Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro which have similar screen size. With Snapdragon 625, the performance is pretty good and you can easily get through a day of battery life with the device. If you are a moderate user, you can manage slightly more than a day.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 9999 for the 3GB RAM variant, the Redmi Y2 offers good performance, latest Android version and great set of cameras along with decent battery life. The 4GB RAM variant is priced Rs 12,999 and recommended only for people who are looking for higher storage. The Redmi Y2 is a good overall package at this price segment and one of the good smartphones to look for if you are in the market for a sub Rs 10k priced device.